Lost and Found
by KHJMLT
Summary: Years after what must have been a dream of a Goblin King and his Labyrinth, Sarah has lived a relatively normal life, blissfully unaware of the barn owl that's been following her. That is until the strange, dancing orbs from her dreams begin to invade her reality, and she starts talking in her sleep, drawing closer and closer to speaking those same fateful words once more...
1. The Aboveground

Chapter 1

"Hello? Earth to Sarah!"

"Huh?" Sarah jerked back into her own brain and found her friend Jessica waving a hand in front of her face impatiently. Her coffee was clutched in her unfeeling hands, but she took a sip of it as she came back to her senses before addressing her friend.

"Sorry, Jess. I just spaced out. Haven't been sleeping well lately."

"Don't I know it," her roommate muttered, taking a sip of her own sugary coffee.

The two sat opposite each other in a busy café near their college. It was a typical, trendy, college town, and the girls blended right in in their boots, yoga pants, oversized sweaters, and knit hats. Jessica's long blonde hair was pulled back in a messy bun, while Sarah's long, dark hair hung plainly down her shoulders.

Jessica was a musical theater major, and she had become fast friends with Sarah during their shared time within the drama department. Sarah was focusing on her acting and had been devoting most of her time to rehearsing her lines for the upcoming play.

The pair had met their freshman year. Now sophomores, they had agreed to live together since it was convenient for both of them, not to mention that Sarah was just about the only person on earth who could put up with Jess's incessant singing.

"I haven't started sleepwalking or anything, have I?"

"No…" Jess looked at Sarah from beneath raised eyebrows. "Is that something I should be concerned about?"

"No!" Sarah said hurriedly. "I just…sometimes I wake up and I feel like I've been running all night long."

"Toward something, or away from it?" Jess asked, laughing while she checked her phone that had just vibrated on the table.

"That's the question, isn't it?" Sarah rolled her eyes. When she was younger, she had always assumed that by the time she was 20, she would have had more answers than questions in her life, but that certainly wasn't the case.

"That's Alex," Jessica said, finishing her text and shoving her phone back in her purse. "We'd better head back. I've got to get ready."

"And _I've_ got to rehearse," Sarah said, pushing her chair in at the table.

Jessica rolled her eyes as the pair exited the coffee shop and started to walk back to their apartment. "You know, your script isn't going anywhere…"

"Jess, I know what you're about to do-"

"Come on!" Jessica mockingly tugged on Sarah's free arm. "It's a Saturday night, and Alex is taking me to the best frat party on campus tonight!"

"And then you get there and it's just a bunch of drunk guys with a terrible taste in music trying to hit on even drunker girls. You come home tired and hungover and swear you're never doing it again, but then you'll promise next week that it's _really_ going to be the best this time…I know how this works."

The pair crossed the street, Jessica huffing indignantly. As the breeze picked up, autumn leaves were blown of the trees and down upon the pair as they made their way back to their apartment.

"Okay, you're not wrong," Jessica finally admitted. "But that doesn't make it any less fun!"

"It does for me," Sarah muttered, thinking of all the times she had dragged a drunken Jess back home during their freshman year.

Jessica knew this was probably true and finally ran out of things to say as the pair approached their home.

Sarah dug out her key and unlocked their ground floor apartment in a sad-looking, grey brick building. She shouldered the door open with a solid shove since the bent wood of the doorframe always caught the door and held it firmly in place, especially as the weather changed.

The pair entered their dingy apartment. The fluorescent lights flickered when Sarah first turned them on, revealing a small but functional kitchen, a living room with no TV and barely enough room for a couch, a bathroom, and two small bedrooms on opposite sides of the living room. Jessica threw her oversized bag down on a rickety, plastic white table the pair was using as their dining room table.

Tossing her hat down beside her bag, Sarah undid her bun and shook out her hair while saying, "You could at least _try_ to come…"

Sarah sighed, digging her script out from her bag on the floor in the corner of the room. She _could_ try to come. It would be nice to finally meet a few people who _weren't_ obsessed with practicing their vocals or reading their scripts all day, not to mention some boys who weren't just interested in each other. But her Saturdays were quickly becoming more for script-reading and for sleep than for parties. It just wasn't worth the effort of going out, no matter what her friend said.

"Have fun, Jess. Me and my script will be right here to console you when you come back."

Jessica sighed and rolled her eyes, moving past Sarah to go to her room. "That's a love story, right?" Jess asked, nodding toward the binding in Sarah's hands. "Maybe if you finally get laid it will let you get inside your character's head a little more-"

Sarah whacked her in the arm with her script. " _Goodbye,_ Jess."

Jessica scurried off to her room to escape her friend's wrath. "Bye, weirdo."

Jessica grabbed her makeup bag and curling iron and made her way to the bathroom while Sarah plopped down on the off-color couch and flipped to where she had left off in her script. Soon, there was music and all sorts of fumbling coming from the bathroom as Jessica began to get ready. The sound of Jess's obnoxious singing to Demi Lovato soon became white noise to Sarah, though, and before she even realized what had happened, she was drifting off to sleep.

However, even if she had stayed awake, it was unlikely that she would have noticed the large barn own perched on the tree outside the living room window, peering in, watching her…


	2. You Remind Me

_Thanks so much for reading my first chapter. This is new territory for me, but I'm excited to explore it! Chapters will be short since I want to keep this story moving at a pretty brisk pace. Also, shoutout to my loyal fans from my other stories who have come to support me here. You're amazing! Anyway, let's get on with it! Enjoy the next chapter._

 **Chapter 2**

Sarah jerked awake when she felt Jessica's hand nudging her shoulder.

"Hey, I'm leaving. Last chance if you want to join."

Sarah's dream was dissipating around her, but what she had been dreaming of, she couldn't remember. She groggily sat up and responded, "I'm just going to make dinner and go to bed."

Jessica snorted. "Suit yourself. Get some real sleep, okay? Being tired all the time like this can't be healthy."

Sarah nodded and pushed herself up from the couch with a groan. "Have fun," she said sarcastically as a fully made-up Jessica skipped toward the door in her black body-con dress and high heels that Sarah knew would be kicked off shortly after she arrived at her party.

"Oh, I will." Jess bounced her eyebrows in Sarah's direction suggestively before scurrying out the door.

Sarah locked the door behind her and wandered over to the fridge to scrounge up something to eat. Eventually, she decided on a microwave meal and the last diet soda in the fridge. While her food heated, she changed into a baggy T-shirt and oversized sweatpants. She stretched and groaned again. Jess was right. If her sleep didn't get any better in the next week or two, she might actually go see somebody about it.

Food in hand, she decided that now was as good a time as ever to get started on her project for her film class. They were currently breaking down the success of classic movie stars on the early silver screen, and Sarah had been assigned a paper on _The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer_ starring Cary Grant. She figured she could at least watch the film while she ate, even if she procrastinated working on the paper until tomorrow.

Sarah sat cross-legged on the couch and pulled up the movie on her laptop. She pressed play and began to eat her freezer-burned meal while the opening credits rolled.

An hour later, Sarah was slumped back down on the cushions, absentmindedly jotting down a few notes to help her with her paper but also checking her phone and scrolling through social media. She saw Jess had already posted a few pictures from her night out with Alex. Sarah clicked on them and began thumbing through…

Suddenly, something in the movie caught her attention.

"Hey, you remind me of a man," Cary Grant proclaimed.

"What man?" Shirley Temple responded.

"The man with the power."

Sarah slowly lowered her phone.

"What power?"

"The power of hoodoo."

Her brow furrowed as her eyes locked onto the screen.

"Who do?"

"You do!"

"Do what?"

"…Remind me of the man," Sarah finished in perfect sync with the dialogue in the film.

For reasons she couldn't explain, she felt her blood run cold.

 _What on earth?_

The movie was still playing, but all Sarah could hear was a low muffle in the background as she fell into her thoughts. Why did she know that line already? She knew it, but from another place…But that didn't make any sense, did it?

For some reason, she wanted to remember something. It was like something was trying to come back to her, almost like from a dream…

Almost before Sarah could register what had happened, the movie was over. Still shaken and confused, she cleaned up her dishes and compiled her notes. She would write her paper tomorrow. It was already 11:40, and this lack of sleep really seemed to be getting to her, making her imagine all sorts of strange things…

With a final cautious glance over her shoulder, Sarah turned off the lights in the living room and fell into her bed, letting the darkness of sleep claim her.


	3. Of Magic and Ballgowns

_I love reading your comments and messages, so please continue sending your thoughts my way! The breadcrumbs continue to be laid in this chapter…Enjoy._

Chapter 3

Sarah awoke the next morning from the light streaming in through her blinds. Checking her phone to find it was already past nine, she sighed and forced herself to get up. Again, she felt like she had been dreaming, and her feet and legs felt sore, like she had been running all night long, but she could remember nothing. It was so peculiar…

Still thinking about what she had begun to label as "symptoms," Sarah put a piece of bread in the toaster and opened her laptop on the dining room card table. Hunching over the glowing screen, she opened a new tab.

 _Pain in legs, tiredness, fatigue, dreams of-_

A moan cut through Sarah's thoughts, and she closed her web search about her symptoms as a bleary-eyed Jess stumbled into the common area.

"Good morning, sunshine," Sarah said mockingly.

Jess's hair was a tangled mess, her mascara had been smudged across her face, and she was still in the black dress for the night before, although just as Sarah had predicted, her shoes were noticeably absent.

"…What time is it?" Jessica murmured, squinting against the bright light pouring in from the living room window.

Sarah smiled at her friend's pitiful state. "Time for you to have breakfast."

As if on cue, the toast popped, and Sarah handed it to her roommate, who gratefully accepted and sat down across from her at the table.

After a little food and proper hydration, Jess seemed to be returning back to her usual self and suggested that the girls use the day to go shopping, which Sarah agreed to. They needed more food in their sad, sputtering fridge anyway, and Sarah never passed up an excuse to try on new clothes.

While Jess finished collecting herself, Sarah went out alone to the rehearsal rooms on campus in order to practice some more. Opening night was fast approaching, and she wanted to make sure that her performance was going to be flawless. This was her first major role, and as a sophomore, she had to leave a good impression if she wanted to ensure another role after this one.

It took Jess a couple hours, but eventually she texted Sarah that she was on her way with her car to come pick her up. Sarah gathered her things and left the rehearsal room, making her way down the stairs and toward the front doors.

As she rounded a corner, however, the soft sound of glass bouncing off carpet met her ears. Looking down, she saw that a small, glass orb was rolling toward her across the carpeted entryway of the arts building. It bounced off the toe of her shoe and sat at her feet almost expectantly.

Picking it up and examining it carefully, Sarah held the globe up to the light and caught a bright spark reflected back at her, momentarily blinding her.

 _But if you turn it this way and look into it, it'll show you your dreams…_

Startled by this unknown, echoey voice inside her head, Sarah flinched and nearly dropped the orb out of instinct.

"Hey!" Jerking her head up in surprise, Sarah saw a boy running over to her, his arms full of props and boxes from storage. "Hey, sorry, I dropped one of my boxes over there and all my props went everywhere!"

Sarah forced a smile to be polite and handed the orb back to him. An odd part of her was happy to be rid of it.

"Thanks, have a nice day!"

"You too," Sarah responded half-heartedly. She watched him leave for a moment before she hurried out of the building, drawing her coat tighter around herself as she waited for Jess to arrive.

 ***break***

"You're not a doctor, so you can't tell me what I should and shouldn't be eating!"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "No, but I'm pretty sure three slices of pizza and a soda the size of a baby is _not_ the best cure for a hangover."

Jessica hugged her Mountain Dew cup protectively to her chest as if it were her baby as the pair continued to walk. "Hey, don't hate just because you're jealous."

Sarah rolled her eyes but chose to ignore her roommate's obnoxious slurping as they made their way through the mall. They had already ducked into a couple stores but had quickly taken a break to satiate Jess's cravings.

"So, where to?" Jess asked, discarding her empty soda cup in a nearby trash can.

"You tell me," Sarah said. "I certainly don't need anything."

"Honey." Jess stopped walking and took Sarah by the shoulders. "Women don't go shopping because they _need_ anything."

Sarah couldn't help but laugh. "Fine, then I _want_ a new pair of shoes."

"That's the spirit!"

Jessica picked up the pace and made a beeline for the nearest shoe store. Sarah got distracted by a maxi dress in the window of one of the stores and paused to take a closer look.

"Sarah! Come look at this dress! It's beautiful!"

Jess's voice made Sarah turn around. Her friend was pressed up against the glass of a dress store that looked like it catered to weddings. Sarah rolled her eyes and walked over.

"Jess, what on earth have you…found?"

The breath whooshed out of Sarah's body as she laid eyes on the beautiful white dress, but it wasn't the dress's beauty that took her breath away. There was something about it…

She had seen it before.

She couldn't explain why, but she just knew. The long sleeves, the intricate beading on the bodice, the gold embroidery…

"I could see you in that dress."

Sarah rounded on her friend with a panic-stricken look on her face. "Me? Why would you say that?"

"…Because it's a beautiful dress?" Jess asked, confused by Sarah's odd reaction. "I assume that you do plan on getting married _some_ day."

Sarah's discomfort ebbed somewhat as she realized how ridiculous she was being. She snorted as she took in the elaborate suit next to the dress. "The groom's look is a little excessive though, don't you think?"

Jess laughed. "Yeah, blue and black with rhinestones _and_ sequins? Way too much for me." She tugged on Sarah's sleeve. "C'mon, let's get you those new shoes!"

Jess took off, but Sarah lingered in front of the window a moment longer, struggling to decipher the many different feelings that all surged to the front of her mind when she laid eyes on that dress for a reason that was still unknown. Reluctantly, she turned to follow her friend, leaving the mysterious costumes behind.


	4. Running

Our Sarah is quickly coming back…she can't hide from her past forever!

Chapter 4

"Jess…Do you believe in déjà vu?"

Jessica looked up from her laptop and the five-page paper she had waited until the last possible minute to start working on. "Huh?"

"Déjà vu," Sarah said again. She closed the textbook she had only been pretending to read for the last hour or so. She had been far too preoccupied with the mess of emotions and thoughts bouncing around in her brain. "Do you think it's possible to have seen something before, like a premonition or something, even though you know it makes no sense."

"I guess so…" Jessica responded, confused. "I don't know. I just haven't really thought about it before."

"I just keep seeing things I swear I've seen before…" Sarah murmured.

"Sarah." Jess sighed and began rubbing her temples. "Is there a single moment if your life when you are not overanalyzing something?"

Sarah went to offer a retort, but it died on her lips. Jess just smirked.

"Listen, I'm going to bed," Jessica announced, grabbing her laptop and making her way to her room. "I think you should do the same."

"You're probably right." Sarah rose and began collecting her things.

"Just try to keep it down in there. Your talking is starting to drive me crazy."

Jessica laughed, but Sarah froze. "Talking?" she repeated, confused.

"Yeah…you've been muttering stuff in your sleep. I heard it last night when I came home."

Sarah straightened up and faced her friend, brow furrowed. "…Well what was I saying?"

Jess laughed, scrolling on her phone and absentmindedly responding, "I don't know. Some nonsense about goblins I think."

"Goblins…?" Sarah repeated under her breath.

"Yeah, whatever." Jessica stuck her phone back in her pocket. "I'll see you tomorrow, Sarah. Goodnight!"

Sarah remained frozen, eyes fixed on nothing in particular as the word continued to echo through her mind. _Goblins..._

Coming to her senses, Sarah seized her things and sprinted into her room, slamming the door behind her.

She began to pace the floor anxiously as she was bombarded with memories she had previously buried. Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus and Ambrosius, and… _him._ She had always assumed that she had just dreamt the entire thing. But now…

"The labyrinth…" she breathed. _Could it have been real?_

Impossible. She knew it couldn't have been real! Her parents always told her her head was too high up in the clouds, and over the years, she had believed them. She stopped calling on her imaginary friends in the mirror and soon forgot about them and the adventure she had gone on as the Champion of the Labyrinth. Obviously Toby didn't remember anything at all, although Sarah had ventured to ask in the past. But she hadn't given that fateful night any thought in…years.

"It's stress," she announced out loud, although it was clear that even she did not believe her own explanation. She continued to pace as she muttered, "You're worried about opening night and your thoughts are running away with you…"

Sarah was playing one of the fairies in Shakespeare's _A Midsummer Night's Dream,_ and she was beginning to think that maybe her parents were right; her powerful imagination was running away with her. All the supernatural elements of that script as well as her constant studying of it was making her go a little stir-crazy…

But then what was happening during her sleep? What was she trying to say?

" _Are you running toward something, or away from it?"_ Jess's words echoed through her mind.

"No, no, this is _not_ happening." Frantic, Sarah scurried across the hall to the bathroom. After some digging, she found a half-full bottle of Nyquil under the sink.

"This stops now," she whispered and took a large gulp of the sickly sweet liquid.

Returning to her room and firmly flipping the light switch off, Sarah threw herself into bed and squeezed her eyes shut, doing her best to banish all thoughts of goblins – and their King – from her mind before she finally drifted off to sleep.


	5. A Midsummer Night's Dream

_Chapter 5 is here! Just so you know, this is probably going to be a "quick fic" with a faster plot and less detail, especially compared to my other HP story that's still going, BUT I want to get through all the trivialities of the Aboveground quickly so that we can get into the Underground again because I do have a lot of interesting plot twists planned. :) Please keep taking the time to review/message me! I really appreciate it!_

Chapter 5

Two weeks later, it was finally opening night, and despite the hours she had put in practicing, Sarah was still full of jitters. Sarah's part was not particularly large – she was just a sophomore after all – but it was terrifying all the same.

Despite this, however, Sarah actually woke up feeling well-rested that Friday morning. According to Jessica, Sarah's sleep talking had not come back, and her legs had stopped hurting in the mornings, so she continued to self-medicate. She knew that she needed to find a more permanent solution to her strange insomnia, but she hoped that once the play was over, her stress would begin to ebb and she would finally be back to her usual self.

She hoped.

Showtime wasn't until six, but Sarah was already in the dressing rooms at three-thirty working on her hair and makeup. She had already donned her airy pink dress and had wrapped some climbing ivy around her arms and legs, but she knew her makeup would take a considerable amount of time.

She sat in front of a brightly lit vanity and began to apply her first layer of what would soon become heavy stage makeup. After putting on some setting powder, she began painting body glitter on her shoulders, hands, and legs before returning to her face.

 _So much sparkle…the Goblin King himself would approve,_ Sarah thought sarcastically before she could stop herself.

She went to dip her brush back into the glitter on the table in front of the vanity, but she jerked her head up as a voice responded, "I do."

Sarah cried out in surprise and flinched, falling out of her chair and smacking her makeup off the table in the process. Glitter went everywhere, but before the sparkling explosion, Sarah could have sworn she saw someone standing just behind her in the mirror. Someone tall, slender, blonde…

 _No. That's impossible. He's not even real…_

Climbing back into her chair, Sarah looked around the room frantically, but there was no one else there. The leads were having their makeup done elsewhere, and none of the other minor characters were expected to arrive for another thirty minutes.

She must have imagined it all…

"Get a grip, Sarah," she breathed under her breath, resting her head in her hands and her elbows on the table. She took a few deep, steadying breaths, then groaned while trying to shake the extra glitter out of her hair. She fumbled around on the ground to pick through the chaotic pile of makeup and brushes, cursing the strange tricks her mind had decided to play on her.

It looked like she was going to need that extra time to get ready.

 ***break***

"Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Mote, and Mustardseed, let's go!" the stagehand hissed in the now nearly-empty green room.

Sarah and her 3 costars, also underclassmen, rose from the chairs they had been sitting in and followed him backstage. Sarah felt her nerves rising up again.

 _Relax…you have like four lines!_ she thought to herself, but that didn't seem to help much. The whole incident from earlier had unnerved her, even though she wouldn't admit it to herself. It was just her mind playing tricks on her. Of course it was…

She waited anxiously in the wings, listening to the uproarious laughter from the audience.

The crowd sounded massive. Sarah swallowed.

 _Get this other nonsense out of your head and FOCUS, Sarah!_

She was trying her best, but before she knew it, she heard their cue, and the four new fairies entered the scene, reacting to their queen's dialogue. The audience laughed and clapped accordingly, and Sarah did not forget any of her meager lines.

She ran off stage during the blackout prior to the final scene, where everything returns to "normal" for the humans in the play. She finally breathed a sigh of relief and hoped that maybe that would be the case for her life, too.

A few minutes later, the house lights came up, the music played, and the audience applauded. Sarah returned with the rest of her cast for their bows. Taking stage right in the line of her castmates, Sarah looked out over the crowd and smiled as she spotted Jessica and Alex in one of the aisles on the right side of the theater.

But her smile suddenly vanished when she saw who was sitting behind them.

In the very back by the theater door, shrouded almost entirely in shadow, was that same man who she had thought she saw in the mirror.

This time, though, he was most certainly real.

Even from her place on the stage, she could see his blonde hair, his sharp features, and his piercing blue eyes fixed upon her.

This was unmistakably the man from her dreams, her nightmares, and she breathed his name under her breath in shock.

" _Jareth…"_

As the cast took a collective bow, the arms on either of her shoulders forced her down, and Sarah lost her visual on the strange man. When she straightened up again, to her surprise, he was still in his seat, not vanished like the hallucination he should have been. He offered her a coy smile before making his way toward the exit, soon lost in a crowd of people, almost like he had never existed.

But Sarah knew deep down that wasn't the case at all.

The moment the bows were over, Sarah ran through the wings of the stage and around to the front of the building, bursting out of the doors still in full costume. There was a steady flood of people leaving the theater, but the infamous Goblin King was not among them.

"Sarah?"

The voice nearly made her jump out of her skin.

Jessica laughed at her friend's bizarre reaction. "What on earth has gotten into you? You look like you saw a ghost!"

Sarah looked away from her friend and hopelessly scanned the crowd one more time. Breathless and terrified, Sarah responded, "Well…I guess you could say that I did."


	6. The Fateful Words

_Sorry it took so long to get another chapter out! Thanks for sticking with me and for still reviewing, even in my absence. Hope you enjoy!_

Chapter 6

Sarah left the cast party early by college standards. She had a drink or two to celebrate opening night and danced with a few of her castmates, but things were already starting to wind down, and she was ready to go home.

Jess was on her way home from her date with Alex, so the pair met at their front door.

"Hey girlie, how was the party?"

Sarah smiled. "It was fine."

"You're home awfully early and quite alone."

Rolling her eyes, Sarah said, "Don't start, Jess," as she fit the key into the lock. "I've had quite enough of strange men today, thank you very much."

"So _that's_ why you were freaking out after the play!" Jess exclaimed as Sarah forced open the door and they entered the apartment. "Tell me! Who is he? How do you know him? What's he like?"

"It's not like that, Jess," Sarah began, setting her bag down on the table. "It's much more complic…"

Sarah trailed off mid-sentence.

Sitting on the kitchen counter in front of their bowl of fruit was a perfect peach.

Jess saw it at the same time Sarah did, and began to reach for it as she declared, "I don't remember buying peaches last week…"

"Jess, no!"

Sarah smacked Jessica's hand away, sending the peach flying across the room.

Jess turned to look at Sarah slowly with wide-eyed shock plastered across her face. "Sarah…please tell me what is going on with you. You're worrying me."

"I'm worrying myself!" Sarah cried, leaving the peach discarded and forgotten on the floor and plopping down on the sofa in the living room.

Jess followed her and sat nearby, looking at her intently. "What the hell has gotten into you? You haven't been right for the last couple weeks!"

Sarah sighed. "You're going to think I'm crazy."

Jessica just laughed outright. "Girl, try me."

Taking a deep breath, Sarah started at the only place that made sense. "Well…about six years ago, I was left to babysit my brother, and I was working on a play that must have gotten inside my head. I had…what must have been a dream…that he was captured by goblins and that I had to go and save him. But it was all so real. I remember navigating the labyrinth, I remember all the creatures and challenges I met along the way, and I remember…him."

Jessica's eyebrows raised at this.

"The Goblin King. I know this all sounds so stupid, but in the moment…it just felt so real."

"In your…your vision or dream or whatever this was, what happened with you and this guy that you remember so well?"

Sarah's eyes glazed over as she remembered her journey through the labyrinth all those years ago. "He was the one who kidnapped my brother, who threatened to turn him into a goblin if I didn't solve his labyrinth in time. He tried to confuse me, steer me away…" She cast a wary glance at the peach on the floor in the other room, "he even poisoned me with a peach. But there was always something about him, something spellbinding, mesmerizing, something that drew me to him…"

She heard his voice begin to echo through her head as she continued to unlock more and more memories of him.

 _I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you!_

 _Everything I've done, I've done for you. I move the stars for no one._

 _Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave…_

Jess's voice brought her back to the present.

"So it basically sounds like this figure, whoever he was, was kind of your sexual awakening."

Sarah smacked Jess in the arm. "Eew no, I'm not saying that at all!"

"Mhm…" Jess muttered skeptically from beneath raised eyebrows. "I think I'm going to need a drink to make it through the rest of this story." She got up from the couch and made her way into the kitchen. "Keep talking!" she called over her shoulder.

Sarah groaned. "You're _really_ going to think I'm insane if I keep talking. Hell, _I_ think I'm insane."

A sudden clap of thunder made Sarah jump out of her skin. Looking out the window, she saw the rain begin to fall as they were enveloped by a thunderstorm.

Jess came back with some Jaeger poured in a plastic cup and plopped back down next to Sarah. "Just tell me."

She hardly even knew how to explain the events of the last week. "Well, when you brought up that I was talking about goblins in my sleep, that was the first weird thing. And then...this is crazy…I started seeing things from that dream of mine in the real world. The dress in the window, the quote from the movie, the orb rolling to my feet…then today, before my show…and after…"

Sarah trailed off, but Jess leaned forward eagerly. "C'mon, girl! Spit it out!"

"I know it's impossible, but today I could have sworn I saw him, the Goblin King, standing behind me in the mirror in the dressing room. And then at the end of the show, I…I saw him. He was sitting behind you and Alex, but then he just walked through the doors and vanished without a trace."

Jessica lowered her drink. "What does this mystery man look like? Maybe I saw him."

Despite her best efforts, a small smile crossed Sarah's lips as she said, "He's tall, slender build, blonde hair, and the steeliest blue eyes I've ever seen…"

"He sounds sexy! Trust me, if he was there, I didn't see him."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Of course not…None of this can be real, right? I'm just imagining things…"

Jess set down her plastic cup. "I mean, that's definitely a possibility." After a moment in thought, she asked, "Does this goblin king have a name that you're just afraid to use?"

"Jareth," Sarah breathed, and Jess laughed.

"Even his name is sexy."

Sarah groaned.

"Listen, do you want to know what I think?"

Sarah reluctantly nodded.

"I don't think you're crazy, but I do think that you've been under a lot of stress lately. Your brain is probably just trying to find ways to handle it and maybe to even personify your problems a little bit. Maybe you're seeing this Jareth guy around because you're looking for a guy, or maybe even for something that his image provided when you first dreamt it. You're obviously searching for something, and this is kind of like your brain laying breadcrumbs to try to help you find it. I'm not sure what to tell you. Maybe take a vacation, get on Tinder, hell, I don't know, maybe even let this Jareth guy get some in your dreams—"

"Jess!" Sarah scolded, mortified.

"What? It might fix your issues. I'm just saying."

Sarah was silent at this, feeling completely overwhelmed. Jessica could see it, too, because she laid a hand on her shoulder before saying, "For now, all you can do is go to bed and get some rest." Jess got up and picked up the peach from the floor. "Whatever happens in your dreams is one thing, but let's try to keep it contained there and not let it bleed into the real world." She tossed the peach into the garbage can beneath the sink.

"Amen to that," Sarah muttered, rising from the couch.

"Listen to me," Jessica said, bracing her hands against Sarah's shoulders and looking into her face intently. "Get some rest. Everything is going to be fine."

Sarah drew Jess into a hug. "Thank you for listening to me and not making me feel like a total idiot."

"Of course."

The two separated, and Sarah grabbed her phone off the table before heading into the bathroom to get ready for bed. It had been a long day, and she was already exhausted.

Before brushing her teeth, Sarah unscrewed the cap of the Nyquil, turned the bottle upside down, and…

Nothing came out.

Cursing, Sarah looked inside only to find that the bottle was empty. She had used it all up, and with so much of her energy focused on the play, she had completely forgotten to go out and buy more.

Brushing her teeth, Sarah began pacing the floor anxiously before she stopped herself, thinking about Jess's words. This was exactly the kind of stress her friend was talking about! It was no wonder she was turning into a basket case. The labyrinth _wasn't real,_ and neither was he. She was working herself up over nothing.

Sarah was starting to feel like she needed a drink, too. But she rinsed her mouth, changed into some boyshorts and a t-shirt, and climbed into her bed wearily. She forced herself to take a deep, steadying breath. She listened to the sound of the wind and the rain, and even with the thunder and lightning outside, she found herself drifting off to sleep.

 ***break***

Hours later, Sarah was sound asleep while the storm continued to rage outside. A nearby tree began to tap on her window, but Sarah did not wake. She tossed and turned in her sleep, almost as if she were trying to run. Quietly, she began to speak under her breath.

"I wish…"

There was an air of anticipation in the silent, empty room as Sarah's murmuring continued.

"I wish…the goblins…would…"

Outside, a large owl seeking shelter in a tree watched through her bedroom window.

"Would…come and…take me away…"

She had muttered brief words before in her sleep, but never the full sentence, not since that fateful night.

"…Right now."

And without a moment of hesitation, Sarah was gone.


End file.
